


Wrongs and Rites

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [164]
Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Arranged Marriage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-07-28 02:41:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16232549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: It was the sound that woke Tony, kicked him out of a good, solid sleep.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts: hurt/comfort and Arranged marriage. Prompts from this [generator](http://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).

It was the sound that woke Tony, kicked him out of a good, solid sleep.

At first, he couldn’t tell where it was coming from; outside, perhaps, as if a wolf had captured a deer? No, he realized after a moment, sitting up straight and still in his bed--it was coming from inside, from down the hall, in fact, from the direction of his _armastatu_ ’s rooms, oh, gods--!

He leapt out from under the covers and snatched at his robe, shoved his feet into his house slippers, and was out the door before the servant who stood outside it could stir.

“Sire!” she called as he flew past, but he ignored her, some part of him furious at her inaction. Why had she not roused him? Why had she paid so plaintive a sound, one so full of obvious pain, so little goddamn mind?

The noise came again as he rounded the corner, as he turned up the corridor towards the chambers of his _armastatu_ , and this time so plaintive was the wail that it nearly brought him down to his knees; as it was, he stumbled, tripping over the folds of his robe, and when he came at last to the door behind which his betrothed slept, he was panting, as much out of fear as he was out of breath.

“Peter?” he rasped, his fist in the door. “Peter, it’s me. Are you well?”

As if in answer, the aching echo came again, and Tony reached for the knob, turned aside every inch of proper protocol, and rushed inside a space that, though it lay within the bounds of his castle, was not his own.

Dimly, he realized that there were no servants about; not his own, who should’ve been at the door, nor Peter’s, who should have long since rushed in, pulled from their own rest in the antechambers to tend to their lord’s apparent distress. But there was no one, no eyes to look at him askance as he entered, no bodies to block his approach to his betrothed’s bed, and so when he reached its borders and stretched his arms into the ocean of silks and drew Peter out, it was nothing to clutch the young man to his chest, to feel the pound of Peter’s heart as he gasped and wound his arms around Tony’s body, shivering as if he’d wandered out of the snow.

“Sweet,” Tony murmured. “Sweet, it’s all right.”

Peter moaned again, the sound muffled now by Tony’s robes, and shook his head. “No,” he mumbled. “No, please--”

“Shhhh.” Tony smoothed a hand through his _armastatu_ ’s hair, the smell of his sleep surprisingly sweet. “Peter, I’m here.”

A shudder, another heart-wrenching sob, and Peter clung to him, shaking.

They weren’t supposed to be this close, not for another month; not until the festivities had all peaked and then passed before leaving them be as king and beknighted prince, set together to rule both their kingdoms under one house and one crown. Indeed, they had not been alone, ever, much less so very nearly skin to skin in the shadows of the darkest parts of the night. At first, when Rhodey had told Tony of the restrictions, Tony had laughed in his face; certainly, no matter their attitudes towards this union, the Quesnian royal family would not really expect him to follow the oldest of their ways? These were marriage rites that hadn’t seen the light of day for generations; they had been ancient even when Tony’s great-grandmother was queen.

“It’s not a joke,” Rhodey had said, spilling the marriage contracts across the face of Tony’s desk. “They’re expecting you to follow each of these decrees to the letter. The Quensnians get one whiff that you’ve even thought about violating one of these and they’ll pull the kid out before the union is sealed.”

“He’s hardly a kid, Rhodey; he’s two years past twenty. Older than I was when I became king.”

“Yes, sire,” Rhodey had said patiently, in that way that meant Tony was being especially daft, “but you were raised to be such, shoved out to face the world and all its trials, its glory. This kid--Peter, he’s never been outside of his family’s castle without an escort. He’s never been in a battle, Tony, never seen war. Hell, I doubt if he’s ever been alone with anyone he’s not related to by marriage or blood.”

“Good lord.” Tony sat back, stunned. “But why? Is he their prisoner or their future king?”

Rhodey spread his hands. “Both, it appears. They want so badly to protect him that my sources say he has been hamstrung by fear and by doubt. Which is a shame. He’s a very quick study; good on a horse and in a fight”--he grimaced sardonically--“so long as both are prepared in advance.”

“We’ll do better by him here,” Tony said, firm. “Give him the training he needs, the opportunity for experience. No more lying about and reading about the world from a book. Not all the time, anyway.”

“Sire,” Rhodey had said, his face falling back into grave. “We’ll be lucky if we can get him to the wedding day without breaking one of these fucking rules.”

And here was Tony, plain as day, breaking the biggest and baddest of them all: no touching, ever, not so much as holding hands until the marriage was sealed in front of their kingdoms and God.

Well, he thought petulant, his hand stroking the damp lines of Peter’s back, what was he supposed to do? Lie back and listen to his _armastatu_ cry out without offering comfort, without ensuring at the very least that he was all right?

No, damn it. That wasn’t his way. And if the Quensians didn’t like it, well--

“Tony?” Peter raised his head, his eyes shining in the darkness.

“Hey.” Tony curled his hand around the kid’s cheek. “Yeah, it’s me. You ok?”

Peter closed his eyes, tears clinging to his lashes. “Had a bad dream.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“I know. But I’m still sorry.” He turned a thumb over Peter’s chin. “Nightmares can be a bitch.”

The kid smiled, a quick, fleeting thing that got his eyes open again, got them pitched straight up into Tony’s. “Yeah, they can.”

“I mean, I heard you all the way in my rooms, so. It must’ve been pretty damn bad to get you yelling like that.”

Peter shifted in his arms, just a touch, just enough for Tony to appreciate the heat of his body, suddenly, the weight of the long legs that lay still folded beneath the sheets. “You heard me?” Peter breathed. “All the way in your chambers?”

Tony chuckled. “All the way over there. Yep.”

“Oh.”

All of a sudden Tony was aware that Peter’s hand was moving, that his fingers were steadily creeping up and inside the opening of Tony’s robe, tracing quick inches of Tony’s bare skin.

“Um,” he said, still peering down into the kid’s hooded eyes, doing his best not to shiver at each gentle scratch. “Peter. What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” Peter said softly.“Do you want me to stop?”


	2. Chapter 2

There were, Tony knew, moments that formed a breakpoint in one’s life; moments that, when they passed, gave way to a _before_ and an _after._ As a king, he had passed through many such times and always, for better or for worse, come through unscathed. Singed, perhaps, a bit worse for well, but still standing.

But in this moment--with Peter’s hand on his chest, his pretty face turned towards Tony’s, his expression open and so wholly trusting--Tony knew with utter certainty that he had at last met his match.

He opened his mouth. His tongue tasted like cotton. “I didn’t say that.”

Peter made a warm little sound. “Good. Because I don't want to."

Tony was open to the waist now, his robe slipping in great folds down his shoulders as Peter’s touches grew bolder, his hip pressing firm against the side of Tony’s thigh.

“I like the way that you feel,” Peter murmured. “Your skin, your body. Ever since the first day, when we were introduced, I’ve wondered what it would be like to touch you.”

“Have you?”

“Yes.” The boy leaned in and nuzzled the furred curve of Tony’s chest, those slim, soft lips taking a taste of his skin, and god help him, that small brush made his stiffened cock twitch. “I was frightened every second, every instant, until they set me before you, and you said--Do you remember what you said? You looked at me, right through my veils, and you said--”

He stroked a hand through Peter’s hair, gently cupped the back of his neck. “I said, ‘ _Welcome home, kuninganna_.’”

“And I loved you right then, _kuningas_.” Peter tipped into his grip, those lovely dark eyes covered in a sweet summer sheen. “With all that I am and all I might be. But there was no way for me to tell you on that day, or on any of those that have followed and”--here he licked his lips--“I got really tired of waiting.”

Suddenly, in the boy’s ardent expression, the strangeness of the night--the absent servants, the pointed pitch of Peter’s cry--came into a shadowed sort of focus, like pieces of a unfamiliar puzzle that at last snapped into place.

“You lured me here,” Tony said, a marvel. “Didn’t you? Yanked me from my bed in the dead of night and made me break every last fucking rule. Your people’s rules, by the way.”

“They’re supposed to protect me.” Peter touched the bow of Tony’s jaw. His fingers were trembling. “But I don’t want them to protect me from you.”

He shook when Tony kissed him, a leaf alight in the wind, but he was the first to open his mouth, to slip his tongue over Tony’s teeth and urge him to come in. It was he who pulled eagerly at Tony’s robe and drew his palm over Tony’s straining cock, teasing the curve of it, brushing the soft swell of Tony’s balls. And when Tony slapped those clever hands away at last and peeled back the covers, layer after layer of silk and spun cotton, Peter was the one who reached for him, who tugged Tony atop him and wound his arms around Tony’s neck and moaned and moaned and moaned.

He came everywhere from the briefest of touches, like the boy he still was, spunk hot between this hips and all over Tony’s hand and his cries so full of shock and joy that something in Tony’s heart turned over like a bird and flew into the night air, sang.

“Yes?” he whispered against Peter’s hot cheek, the kid’s fingers kneading sleepily at his shoulders. “Have you had enough for one evening,  _armastatu?_ It’s very late, hmm? Morning’s going to come for you soon.”

“You’re still hard.”

Tony tucked a kiss against his neck, chuckling. “Yes, I’m aware.”

“Well, I don’t want you to be,” Peter whispered, his voice like soft sugar. “I want you to come inside me.”

His hips kicked, drove down mindless into Peter’s. “It’s not that simple, sweet,” he said through gritted teeth. “You’re not ready for me to breach you, for one thing; it takes time.”

Peter stroked the edge of his thigh. “Mmmm. We have time.”

“No, we don’t.”

A feather-soft nip at his chin, the curve of a smirk. “Why not?”

Tony groaned, a sound that shook the whole bed. “You know why not, don’t you?” he panted. “Gods, Peter, feel what you’ve done to my dick.”

He ended up on his back with his _kuninganna_ kneeling over him, touching him, each tentative stroke growing bolder until Tony was paralyzed by it, how good it felt, how desperate Peter was making him, how much he wanted to come.

“I like this,” Peter said.

“Yeah?” He squeezed the kid’s bicep.

“Yes.” He swept his eyes up Tony’s chest and locked their eyes together, his grip never wavering. “I like the way you look when I do this.”

Tony could barely breathe. “Fuck.”

“When you do that to me,” Peter said, his cheeks darkening. “When you’re inside me, will I feel all of this? Every inch?”

No words now, just a scrape in his throat of something needy and hot.

“I want to.” Peter leaned down, his fist caught below the head, and laid a kiss on the tip, fed Tony the warm width of his tongue. “I want you, Tony,” his _armastatu_ murmured. “All of you, always. Now and for the rest of my life.”

Then there was lightning in his eyes, a sharp slash, a frenzy, and he could feel himself coming, feel his balls emptying, feel Peter’s hand slipping as he drew out each and every drop. Peter, who was gasping; Peter, whose cheeks bore his spunk; Peter, who was hard again, his cock rubbing red and anxious against the soft lilac sheets.

“Tony,” he said as Tony reached for him, pulled Peter down at his side. “Tony, Tony, please, I need--”

Tony kissed him, lapped the taste of his seed from Peter’s mouth and kissed him again, touched him again, pulled greedily at Peter’s long, slender dick and licked up the kid’s moans and pulled him close as sleep took him, stretched its shadowed hands towards them both, and when he dreamed, Peter’s _kuningas_ , it was of a future unveiled, unburdened; a future built from the hands of them both. A future sketched, his dreams told him, from its very foundations with love.

 

*****  


“You want to explain this to me?”

“Depends,” Tony said as Rhodey stormed into his study. “What is it?”

“This,” Rhodey said, “is a message from the Quensian council, relayed by their consulate this afternoon.”

“Is it?”

“It _is_.”

Tony reached for his glass. “And?”

“And, they’re proposing a renegotiation of the terms of your betrothal.”

“Huh. Are they?”

Rhodey glared at him; the same glare, Tony suspected, that had been the last sight of more than one opponent in battle. “Yeah. They want you to get married sooner. A lot fucking sooner. Like next week.”

Tony grinned, tried to hide it behind a cough of red wine. “Wow. That soon, huh?”

“Funny thing,” Rhodey said, hurling the heavy parchment at the table. “Apparently there’s a loophole in their encyclopedia of rules: if the Quensian betrothed asks--in triplicate, no doubt--then the six-month engagement period and the bullshit that goes with it can be waived in total, full stop.”

“Huh.”

“Did you know that?”

Tony held up a hand. “Honest to the gods, no, I didn’t.”

Rhodey crossed his arms. “And you wouldn’t happen to know why a certain cloistered Quensian to whom you're engaged would make such a request, do you?”

“No,” Tony said, wide-eyed. “I have no idea. But we’re not going to look this gift horse in the mouth, right? I mean, yes, a wedding next week will stress everyone out, but it’s better than living in fear of breaking some arcane rule, isn’t it?”

Rhodey’s eyes narrowed. “Which nobody’s done here.”

“Of course not!”

“So if I’ve heard rumors of something rule-breaking related that may or may not have happened a few nights ago, those would be totally wrong, right?”

“Utterly and completely,” Tony said. “And shocking, frankly. I never took you for a gossip, Rhodey. You been listening at windows in the kitchen again?”

Rhodey snorted and shook his head, the tension in his face finally breaking. “You’re lucky I like you. You know that, don’t you? If you’d tried to pull this shit with Rogers around, he’d have eaten you alive.”

 _Ah, Steve_. Tony gave up a sigh. That one still stung. “Are you saying you’re envious of a dead man, Rhodey?”

“Pffft,” Rhodey scoffed, halfway to the door. “I’ve told you, he’s not dead: he’s hiding from your dumb ass. And when you pull shit like this, I can understand why. Five years in the fucking Hollows are starting to sound like a vacation to me.” He stopped in the doorway and pointed at the shadows by the hearth, a sharp finger stabbing the air. “And do me a favor: teach your _kuninganna_ how to hide properly. Kid doesn’t have a sneaky bone in his body.”

Before the lock had caught, Peter was in his arms, grinning, smelling of wood and warm ash. “I told you they’d say yes,” he said.

“So you did.” Tony smoothed back his hair. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“It’s alright. Next time you’ll know.”

“Know what?”

Peter kissed his chin, the soft slope of his neck. “That my instincts are always right.”

“Oh, yeah?” He curled his hands around the kid’s hips and laid his head back to make room for that gorgeous, greedy mouth. “And what are your instincts telling you right now, _armastatu_?”

“Here, _kuningas_ ,” Peter said in his ear, his smile hot, his clever fingers easing between them, “let me show you.”


End file.
